![handle is hein.journals/jlbkrg23 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Banking Regulation (2022) 23:1-6
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41261-021-00172-2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Soft law and multilevel cooperation as sources of (new) constitutional
challenges in EU economic and monetary integration: introduction
to the special issue
Diane Fromage . Mariolina Eliantonio2 - Kathryn Wright3
Accepted: 21 June 2021 / Published online: 1 July 2021
©The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2021
Abstract
Following the outbreak of the Great Financial Crisis, numerous reforms were conducted in all areas of the European Union
(EU)'s Economic and Monetary Union. These reforms aimed at strengthening the resilience of Member States' economies
after they had been put under severe strain by the crisis. They included, among others, the reinforcement of the efforts toward
economic coordination in the framework of the European Semester for economic policy coordination, or the creation of
the European Banking Union after which competences in the areas of banking supervision and bank resolution have been
transferred to the European level. More than a decade after the Great Financial Crisis however, several of these reforms are
still underway. This article is an introduction to this Special Issue whose contributions examine the reforms performed to
date, as well as those that are currently under discussion, from the perspectives of multilevel (administrative) cooperation
and the resort to soft law instruments. Indeed, the procedures newly devised rely heavily on the effective cooperation between
national and European institutions as well as on a variety of soft law instruments.
Keywords European Union - Economic and Monetary Union - Great financial crisis - Soft law - Multilevel cooperation-
Composite procedures
Introduction: the rise of soft law
and multilevel cooperation in EU economic
and monetary integration
In response to the Great Financial Crisis, all the areas of
the European Union (EU)'s Economic and Monetary Union
(EMU) have undergone significant reforms characterized by
additional transfers of competences to the EU level. The
reforms have included the reinforcement of the coordina-
tion among Member States' economic and financial poli-
cies, which now happens under the tighter oversight of EU
institutions (primarily, the European Commission and the
Council of the EU). To this end, EU and national institu-
tions (especially those of the euro area) engage in a constant
Diane Fromage
diane.fromage@ sciencespo.fr
Law School, Sciences Po, Paris, France
2 Law Faculty, Maastricht University, Maastricht,
The Netherlands
3 Law School, University of York, York, UK
dialogue in the framework of the European Semester. Since
its institution in 2010, the European Semester has, though,
been reformed on several occasions. Although its impor-
tance in the efforts toward economic integration within the
EU was recently confirmed by its use as a vehicle to chan-
nel the EU's largest fund for recovery post-COVID-19 (the
Recovery and Resilience Fund), it remains the case that its
implementation so far has been subject to criticism on the
basis of the discretion it leaves to the European Commission,
or of the limited compliance by the Member States with the
recommendations made to them (so-called Country Specific
Recommendations).'
Next to these reforms, important changes were made in
the field of financial regulation proper, after the crisis of the
banking sector that we witnessed a decade ago almost threat-
ened the very existence of the euro. These efforts to deepen
the integration of the European financial sector encompassed
the creation of the European System of Financial Stability in
2010 and were later consolidated in 2013 with the creation
1 See on the Commission's discretion Leino and Saarenheimo [28,
p. 5f.] and on compliance with Country Specific Recommendations
European Parliament Briefing [22].
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